Action at 20,000 feet as director sets out to film Everest's deadliest day

By Hugh Davies

12:01AM BST 24 Apr 2004

The deadliest single day on Everest, when eight mountaineers died, is being turned into a £56 million drama for Universal Pictures by Britain's most successful movie company, Working Title.

Stephen Daldry, the director, just back from a reconnaissance in which he reached an icefall at 20,000 feet, said yesterday: "We're going to need some very fit actors."

Daldry, who had never climbed in his life and was nursing a badly-blistered mouth, said: "There is a constant battle - not against altitude sickness - but trying to get oxygen all the time, and I was burned very badly from the reflection of the sun."

A slender figure at the best of times, he had also lost a lot of weight. He said: "I did feel ill-equipped, but my body has strengthened up from the ice climb. It was a hefty old five weeks, possibly the most dangerous thing I have ever done in my life. Going any higher would have been foolhardy.

"I was astonished how hard it was and my admiration for those who climb has deepened immeasurably."

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Except for his £5 million Billy Elliot: The Musical, which opens in London's West End early next year, Daldry has put everything on hold to ensure the film will be one of the great disaster epics on its release in 2006.

His work ethic is similar to that of his great friend Peter Weir, who spent thousands of hours sailing in ancient ships to imagine what 19th century seafaring was like for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, which won an Academy Award for cinematography. Daldry said: "The climb was a pretty extreme way of doing research. But I had to find out what it was like on Everest. The great difficulty is the scale, and where the human form fits into the void. It's hard to imagine unless you have been there."

Daldry, who was nominated for Oscars for Billy Elliot and The Hours, has been groomed by Working Title (creators of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually, Bridget Jones's Diary and Notting Hill) since his stint as director of the Royal Court Theatre.

He has directed more than 100 plays, including the Tony Award-winning revival of An Inspector Calls and David Hare's one-man show Via Dolorosa. His big screen debut was with the short film Eight in 1998. Billy Elliot was his first feature film, earning international rave reviews for its originality.

Noted as a fearless director - An Inspector Calls was his remarkable recasting of a conventional thriller - he relished casting Nicole Kidman in the role of Virginia Woolf in The Hours.

This time, he is facing the ultimate test for a man who admits to a fear of heights.

He is recreating May 10, 1996, when a huge storm hit Everest claiming the eight lives, including those of Americans and an accomplished female climber from Japan, who had no previous experience on the ice.

With Daldry on Everest were two Americans, David Breashears and Ed Viesturs, who at the time of the storm were on the mountain filming the IMAX documentary Everest. They assisted in the rescue effort, giving survivors oxygen.

Equipped with 35mm cameras, they are shooting background images for the picture. Next week they will climb to the summit at 29,028 feet, set up camp and film the dawn. Both have already reached the top five times. The actors, who still have to be chosen, while super-fit, will, for insurance reasons, probably not go to Everest. In any case, as Daldry has found, even on the lower reaches, danger is ever present.

Daldry said: "Realistically, you can't put actors on the top of Everest.

"The nearest road is 100 miles away, and there is always the danger of a helicopter coming into the base camp and crashing. At an altitude of 11,000 or 12,000 feet, it becomes very difficult. We will probably opt for the Alps, and also film in New Zealand.

"There have been some spectacular climbing films. Clint Eastwood's The Eiger Sanction had some marvellous footage. There was also Vertical Limit (about K-2, with Bill Paxton) and Cliffhanger (with Sylvester Stallone). Touching the Void (set in the Andes) was an incredibly well-made documentary. But there are not a huge number of such films.

"The interest for me is the endlessly fascinating story of how middle-aged climbers, all from different backgrounds, both white and blue collar workers, some without much experience, run into a catastrophic situation.

"A storm unexpectedly comes, and they behave very well. There is unexpected bravery and sacrifice." His Everest trek had its moments, he said. "We were sitting in base camp when a sherpa arrived, after walking in for four days, with a CD of the mix of Elton John's music for the Billy Elliot musical.

"There was quite a stir in the mess tent when I put the disc on, especially when the sherpa realised that he was hearing all new music by Elton."